One of the reasons why religion seems irrelevant today is that many of us no longer have the sense that we are surrounded by the unseen. Our scientific culture educates us to focus our attention on the physical and material world in front of us. ... One of [this pov's] consequences, however, is that we have, as it were, edited out the sense of the "spiritual" or the "holy" which ... was once an essential component of our human experience of the world. ... Naturally people wanted to get in touch with this [spiritual/supernatural] reality, but they also simply wanted admire it. ... This sense of the numinous was basic to religion. It preceded any desire to explain the origin of the world or find a basis for ethical behavior. The numinous power was sensed by human beings in different ways -- sometimes it inspired wild bacchanalian excitement; sometimes a deep calm; sometimes people felt dread, awe and humility in the presence of the mysterious force inherent in every aspect of life. When people began to devise their myths and worship their gods, they were not seeking a literal explanation for natural phenomena. Their symbolic stories, cave paintings and carvings were an attempt to express their wonder and to link this pervasive mystery with their own lives; indeed, poets, artists and musicians are often impelled by a similar desire today.
I don't want to keep kicking a dead horse because I want to be right, but I feel that the "traditional" explanation for cave paintings (especially the Hall of the Bulls at Lascaux) i.e. that they have a religious/ceremonial purpose, isn't completely off base. Because language, art, and religion are so tied up with symbolic thought, which was (as we've talked about) humankind's new 'feature', they are sort of mushed together.
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